


Without an exit stratagy

by FlounderTech



Series: A brief case of madness [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, ER songfic, M/M, One Shot, Sea, Songfic, you were never mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1195164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlounderTech/pseuds/FlounderTech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras leaves Grantaire one time too many with a love of wine and too much time on his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without an exit stratagy

**Author's Note:**

> So the song that this fic is based off is from the album "A Brief Case Of Madness" by Tom Dickens and the Punintentionals. The song is called "Without Exit Strategy" and can be found here (where you can also buy the album. I would suggest at least listening to it. Its rather wonderful.)  
> http://music.tomdickins.net/track/without-exit-strategy  
> Neither song, nor characters are mine. But do enjoy the music.

Grantaire hated the sea. Always had. After all, it had taken Enjolras away from him one time too many. Scared him enough that he had found his way back into the bottle. From his dingy flat window, he could quite clearly see the sea, watch the waves crash in over the beachfront. He knew the exit strategy for the flat. But not from his heart.  
His mind jumped to the words that Combeferre had said to him after Enjolras had left this time. "You learn to drink for three far too quickly for a man who cooks for himself every night." At least, this was the last thing that was said to him. He pulled himself into seclusion soon after, leaving his home. His flat. His. Only to go and restock his wine collection. It was fine. He was fine. He could pull that oh so familiar mask back onto his features to deal with this all. And for a little while, he could hide it from those who it mattered to. Blur the lines between the fiction he was portraying and the reality that hit him every morning when he rolled over to find that familiar warmth not there.  
Every year that the man went, but every year he would return. Sometimes Enjolras would be gone for less than a year, but every time there was something different. Something new. And every time, the taste of the sea would cling to him a little more.  
He could only liken it to the other man cheating on him with the sea. He seemed to love her more than he did Grantaire, after all.  
And so he found himself muttering to himself one morning, the duvet wrapped around his shoulders and drawn close around him. His words were like a silent prayer, and a list of things that were indeed, his.  
"This flat is mine. This desk is mine. This view is mine. This body's mine." He blinked, looking down to himself. "Not sure how much I like it. But you know." He shrugged, looking back out to the view from the window he shared. Not shared. He owned. And it dawned on him as he listed through the things that were his, that his body was not completely his.  
"You know, E. Every time you leave you take a vital part of me. And you leave behind a love of wine that grows with every year." He sighed softly. "And you never give me quite enough time to get over it." Running a hand through the short, dark hair, letting it flop back into place with bits sticking up at odd angles, he shook his head and sighed, moving away from the window.  
"But I suppose these things are all mine. At least I can take comfort in that."  
Grantaire had taken to talking to himself. And this worried everyone more. 

 

Combeferre shook his head as he stepped into the bar and saw the groups friend and cynic at the bar, empty bottle on one side of him, a rather fresh on the other.  
"What time did you start?" He asked, tone gentle as he rested a hand on the mans shoulder.  
"Midday-ish."  
"Grantaire..." He waved at the barman to get him a glass, sighing deeply. "Grantaire, you can't keep doing this. Its his job. Nothing more." The other man shot him a look, a full glare.  
"Then why is it he spends more time out there then on land, eh? Does he hold no feelings for me? See no good in me?" Downing the rest of the glass, he reached for the bottle, to have his hand slapped away by Combeferre once more.  
"You need to slow down, 'Taire. He does what is required. He needs his space." The man sighed, moving to pour himself a glass from the bottle, jumping as a man tapped his back and kissed his cheek briefly, alerting him to Courfeyracs arrival with both Marius and Cosette. "We're all worried. You're slipping again."  
"He was never mine, was he?"  
"He's always been yours. Believe me." 

 

Grantaire groaned as he was rudely awoken by a sudden burst of sunlight into his room.  
"Wakey wakey."  
"F'coff."  
"No way to treat a guest now, is it?" That voice... That... Shit. Grantaire sat upright almost immediately, eyes opening to see that familiar shape in the light coming in from the window. That jacket. That messy blonde crop.  
"Enjolras..?"  
"Who else." Grantaire ran a hand through his hair, an almighty yawn escaping him as he shuffled up a little further on the bed, letting him take a seat, almost shocked by the way that the other mans fingers already moved to his jaw and their lips met. Only briefly, but enough to send those familiar sparks through his body and have him almost at the others will. Almost.  
"When'd you get back?"  
"Last night." The man sighed and shook his head a little, pulling back and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Stayed at Courfeyracs. You seemed far too... Out of it to see me last night."  
"Enj..."  
"I hate it when you drink that much, you know."  
"I know."  
"Why do you do it, then?" Grantaire leant back, pulling his hand away from the other mans extending one.  
"Because you're here, then you're not. You leave with barely any warning and turn up all of a sudden, in my room, waking me up from a long night. Because you leave me, Enjolras. You leave me far too often."  
"Its the nature of my job, Taire."  
"Not to the extent you go." Grantaire snapped, pulling back entirely from the other man. "You always have to get out just as we become more. You always have a job to go on. You always have to go out on a job as soon as you're confronted with more than skin. As soon as emotions are involved, you seem to employ your exit strategy."  
"'Taire..."  
"You were never mine, were you?" The dark haired man was very much upset by the entire thing, not daring to lay his eyes on Enjolras. On the man that he loved and had never said. "Not once...Not in all this time..." Again, his mind took him through that familiar list process that Joly suggested one year. List everything that was his. Every single thing. That pen was his. That pencil was his. That painting on the wall, yes, that was his. The man on his bed? No. That was not his. And he realized this every day, and it hit him harder every day.  
"I'm sorry, Grantaire." The full sound of his name caused him to look at the other man, flinching as his hand moved to rest on his cheek, the blond haired man having scooted up the bed a little to sit closer. "I.. I never quite realized."  
"You're a fucking idiot."  
"I know. I feel like one. You should have said something." Enjolras' reaction was surprising to Grantaire. It was so calm. So soft. Perhaps... Perhaps he was his after all. "You need to know that I love you, 'Taire. I really do."  
"It doesn't feel like it when you're away."  
"But I do. Every day you make your way into my thoughts. Its for you... Us... That I'm out there so long." The mans fingers stroked down his cheek lightly. "To keep us afloat. However well your art pays, I get a good sum of money going into our bank." The look that the two men shared hit each of them hard. And in completely different ways. Enjolras realized in that look quite how much he had messed everything up, his hand moving away to brush through his hair. Grantaire, well. Grantaire realized quite how much he was, indeed loved. Between the way his fingers moved against his face, the way his tone shifted ever so slightly as little things came to mind about him. Everything suggested that Enjolras did truly love him, but was as awful as showing it as Grantaire was coping when he was away. It took a moment before he pulled himself up onto his knees, took hold of the others lapel and pulled him into another kiss, less sweet, just as tender, more apologetic for snapping.  
And he pulled away for a moment to whisper against the others lips. "Take me with you next time."


End file.
